Articles

Pirates of the Burning Sea Pile-on

Avast, me hearties! We shanghai'd four of our GameSpy swabbies and put them to work swabbing the decks of Flying Lab's pirate-themed MMO.

One of the cosmic truths here at GameSpy is that pirates are one of the four coolest things in the universe (the other three being ninjas, monkeys and zombies). As such, we've been watching the development of Flying Labs' pirate-themed MMO with enormous interest. It was somewhat ironic given our love of pirates, then, that once Pirates of the Burning Sea launched in earnest and our staff began discussing which side to join, the rest of us should find ourselves dragooned onto the side of the British by Fargo's heretofore unexpressed (and somewhat disturbing) love of the Horatio Hornblower books, silk breeches and powdered wigs.

After a week or so of playing (much more in Delsyn's case), what we found was a game with an absolutely brilliant basic design and great naval combat that unfortunately suffers from bugs, a hellish learning curve and a distinct lack of polish. With that in mind, and our official review a few days away (for final testing), we've got four of our GameSpy maties who joined the MMO in various capacities and reported back on their experiences in the 17th century Caribbean, starting with our frustrations and ending with our celebrations.

Learning the Ropes

Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch (Elizabeth Sharkshot/Naval Officer 23): Ahoy, ahoy, gentlemen! We've been sailing the Spanish Main for a little over a week now (more if you count the Pre-Boarding time) and I'm starting to get a little tired of being your all-purpose answer/tutorial system. Keep in mind that I don't blame you for this as much as this game's devil of a learning curve. I've been following its development for months, I played in the beta quite a bit and I've logged in extensive time with it since launch and I'm still learning things about basic gameplay systems like the economy, avatar combat and port contention. I've learned enough to become comfortable with the game and really start appreciating its better qualities (and there are lots), but every time I have to teach you guys something, I feel like I have to drag you over that hump and make you enjoy the game.

Gerald Villoria (Silk Stockings/Freetrader 10): My experience with Pirates of the Burning Sea hasn't been nearly as positive as yours, despite your admirable work as our very own Game Counselor. To put it bluntly, the game isn't ready to ship, and there are far too many more polished options out there for me to spend my time waiting for this egg to hatch. I'll agree with you in that the biggest issue I've had is simply learning how to play. The steep learning curve isn't due to the game being complex and evolved, though. I'm a number cruncher when it comes to these types of games, and I can happily spend hours comparing stats on different weapons, or trying to find a deal at the auction house. But after being whisked through the hastily constructed tutorial, I felt like I was treading water, lost as to how to go about having fun.

I was learning things through trial and error, and generally wishing that more effort were put into making the early experience more user-friendly. There's an art to introducing new players to a massively multiplayer online game. You have to start off slow and build upon each new game mechanic as you gradually lead a player towards the more robust levels of gameplay. I find it hard to muster the patience to play a game that fails to do very basic things, like clearly distinguishing between quest difficulties and solo and group content.

Jeff Hale (Ben Wa/Privateer 9): Although my current opinion isn't quite as negative as Gerald's, I do have to agree that the developers have left us all a little high and dry in the learning department. I may just be making fun of myself here, but it took me three or four levels to find any quests that were not immediately available on the docks. Without Allen close by to hold my hand, I am not sure that I ever would have figured out that pushing "L" would pop open the local map and show me how big each port really was. You're given two separate full-page charts on ship and hand-to-hand combat when you start out and it really is way too much information to take in at one time. I don't feel like I should have to be as proactive as I have been in learning what the heck I am supposed to be doing.